Immortality Syndrome from Champions Powers

[wick]

I was working on a character with regeration with resurrection and to better understand how this works I compared it to a power in the Champions power book called" Immortality Syndrome" pg 379. Which only confused me because it does not make any sense.

 

 

  How I interpret regenerative with resurrection (assume 20 body): Normally if you get hit below your negative body, in this case -21, you would die and cease regenerative. However since you bought resurrect it continues to work and unless your opponent takes extreme measures like decapitating you to stop the regenerating (or any condition you specified in the power. Stake through the heart, Burning, etc...) , you will continue to regenerate regaining life. With the limitation of Resurrect only you start regening at death, -21, and stop regenerating at positive body ( 1 body right?) Even if I get hit by more body damage I dhould continue to reg if the conditions are not met to stop my death regen.

 

Now for the power in question:

 

 Immortality syndrome man (also with 20 Body) gets hit by 21 points of body. He regens every turn (his is not "resurrect only" so it works all the time). But due to bad luck he is taking body damage each turn and it is more damage than his regen can keep up with so he gets to -20. Now at this point he would normally be dead (but still regenerating) but he also has +50 body that is used to push his death point to a whopping -70 body. He also specified that reaching that state ( taking that much body damage his neg body and another 50) would be a way to prevent his resurrection regen from working.  

 

If you go with my interpretation for immortality syndrome man, he would not need to spend the points buy the +50 body at all. He only needs to specify that the resurrection ceases to work when he reaches a certain amount of damage specified in the description of the Resurrection advantage for his resurrection power.  Or alternatively he can not take the Resurrection Advantage and keep the power written as is. To use both?: by the time he gets to -70 body where the Resurrect Advantage would kick in because it triggers when he dies, he would stop regenerating while dead because he met the conditions for the Resurrection power to no longer work.

 

TL/DR: the way Immortality syndrome says that it works does not make sense. It is like a vampire that regens if it dies with a stake in its heart and also stops resurrecting if there is a stake in its heart. WTF? This really caused me confusion on the whole way it is supposed to work. 

 

Unless they mean that regeneration with resurrect advantage work while you are dying and not dead. Dying being from -1 to -body total. In that case Immortality syndrome works. However,the rule book says it works after death and death is actually at -body total.

 

Questions:

-Am I interpreting this right?

-Is Immortality Syndrome written correctly and makes sense?

-When writing up your power and you want the resurrect to not work when you suffer massive damage how much is reasonable?  2x total neg body? 3X? I assume a GM would need to ensure their is a reasonable cap.

 

[mrinku]

It sounds badly worded. I have the book and will have a look at home tonight.

 

The basic Regeneration with Resurrection power is pretty straightforward though. IMHO there are a lot of powers in that book that overthink the issue.

 

What effect were you going for in terms of the power you're building?

[CptPatriot]

If I understand this correctly, the character has an additional +50 Body which is only used to give itself a lower threshold.

 

This power serves the point of protecting the body from catastrophic damage over and above the normal death threshold.

 

Having the additional +50 Body brings the death threshold to -70 and while the body looks severely damaged, for the purposes of the Regeneration power it'll keep working to repair the damage and either grow new limbs or put the pieces back together if left unmolested.

 

If the Resurrection part of the Regeneration is stopped by preventing his parts from being put together or doing something to the body like burning the pieces, then he'd be dead dead, but only if his Body score was below -70 as he isn't dead yet.

 

Technically, his body would continue to repair the damage.

 

If he took enough Body to surpass -70, he'd be officially dead and any efforts to further obliterate the body or keep its parts separated would prevent the Regeneration from working.

[steriaca]

My favorite conditions to stop regeneration.

 

1) Total reducing the body to atoms and spreading the atoms across planets.

 

2) Convincing the mystical cosmic magical being that target is unworthy to be resurrected.

 

3) Destroying the soul after the body is destroyed (via Transformation, 1 pip of it is enough to do so).

 

4) Bash the head, as long as the physical brain survives, the TK power will resurrect the body, even of it has to incorporate other parts.

 

5) Keep it away from dead bodies beyond itself. If a bit of the regeneration user's body touches a roughly intact corpse, the loose body part will incorporate with it and renews itself using the corpse as raw material.

[DasBroot]

I think your interpretation is correct - since Ressurrection is already present they could specify 50 points past body being the condition that kills them forever (it's actually a more common condition than what most people would choose) and not spend any points on Body to lower the threshold - it's redundant.

 

However, if you *don't* take Resurrection it's actually a neat way to stay alive past when you'd normally be dead.

 

Unless the GM awarded it a -1 limitation or more, though (and in a superhero game it *could* be worth more - how often are superheroes actually at negative body in a reasonably balanced game?)  I think I'd rather just buy 25 body.  

 

That also changes the amount of damage you can take before dying by 50 points (25 on the positive side, 25 on the negative) AND is more useful because it slows you getting to -BOD in the first place. 

[wick]

My favorite conditions to stop regeneration.

 

1) Total reducing the body to atoms and spreading the atoms across planets.

 

2) Convincing the mystical cosmic magical being that target is unworthy to be resurrected.

 

3) Destroying the soul after the body is destroyed (via Transformation, 1 pip of it is enough to do so).

 

4) Bash the head, as long as the physical brain survives, the TK power will resurrect the body, even of it has to incorporate other parts.

 

5) Keep it away from dead bodies beyond itself. If a bit of the regeneration user's body touches a roughly intact corpse, the loose body part will incorporate with it and renews itself using the corpse as raw material.

 I am not sure the top 2 maybe #3 as well would fit the criteria of "reasonable way of preventing resurrection". I suppose it would be ok for a villain though if it fit the tenor and power of the campaign. Really OP if the campaign is not on the interplanetary level or there is no means of dimensional travel for example.  

 

Also, a problem if there isn't an opponent with transform to do #3. ( not so much for villains since the GM will introduce a villain with transform eventually) 

 

Any player can do #4 and #5 and after beating the target a few times they may actually be able to determine how to finish the resurrecter for good. Either through experimentation or deduction skill roll.

[steriaca]

The examples are just that...examples. Your millage may vary.

[mrinku]

IMHO it's really badly worded. The power as written does make the Resurrection adder useless, just as Wick says.

 

What I think is the error is the distinction between "dead" (negative normal BODY) and "totally destroyed". CC doesn't define that, and it's highly circumstantial, but simply bleeding to death won't reach that state. The example is flat out wrong. Assuming he's somehow bleeding past his Regeneration ability, he'd reach -65 and die. Then resurrect, unless his body had been severed or "totally destroyed". 

 

So... Immortality Syndrome Guy is hit by a disintegration attack that does 100 BODY. Yep, he's dead. Riddled with bullets and reduced to -69 BODY? Nope. Dead if he bleeds to -70, or takes a small hit, but will resurrect.

 

I seemed to recall an old rule that a character was normally "totally destroyed" if they went to negative BODYx2, but couldn't find it in 4e. In any case, special effects definitely play a part. An attack that instantly kills by doing massive damage to a single vital organ (i.e. punch into the chest and pull out the heart) would not "totally destroy" the body, though it would prevent Resurrection if "heart destroyed" was the condition that prevented the use of it. On the other hand, totally destroying a body with small calibre bullets (two goons with Glocks for example) is going to take a fair bit of effort. Some special effects may not even cause gross damage to the body at all - a Death Touch, or strangulation (it really won't matter how long you stop them breathing after they actually stop breathing on their own...), or drowning. On the other hand, a burning body that isn't extinguished will clearly keep taking damage after they die. Explosive damage is likely to dismember if it is large enough, as is tearing damage from vehicle collisions.

 

There's also the consideration of resurrecting, but still being affected by a lethal situation. The old Mob standbys of cement shoes and into the river, and sealing the body into building foundations will still keep you effectively dead unless you had appropriate Life Support. But probably not beyond hope of rescue, due to Resurrection.

 

"Great Scott! Immortaloid has been sucked into space! We have mere decades to rescue him before his orbit brings him crashing into the sun!"

[dsatow]

In my eyes, it would depend on the Immortality.  If you look at Captain Jack Harkness, they had the molecules which made up his body slowly coalesce back to human shape.

 

Side note: The vampire situation, both the regen and the stake in the heart are probably at work.  The regen would regen the vampire alive.  The vampire would have a susceptibility to the stake and take body damage and die.  Upon dying, the stake would no longer do susceptibility damage and the regen would kick in, ad nauseum.  It also explains why vampires really hate being staked in the heart vs being riddled with bullets.